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Space Shuttle

2 Space Shuttles + 1 asteroid the size of Texas + a dash of 90s rock = the most terribly wonderful space movie of all time? Well, maybe for Emily, Matt, and Nick. This fall has got us hooked on space movies. So, Emily, Matt, and Nick decided to rewatch the 1998 film Armageddon to see how many inaccuracies they could find.

On October 29, 1998, John Glenn launched on his second spaceflight, 36 years after his historic 1962 flight on the Mercury Friendship 7 spacecraft. When John Glenn boarded the shuttle orbiter Discovery, now in the Museum’s collection and displayed at our Udvar-Hazy Center, he was 77 years old—the oldest person yet to venture into space.

Space Shuttle Enterprise, the first space shuttle orbiter ever built, was once displayed where Discovery is today. Despite both being part of the Space Shuttle program, the two served very different purposes and tell very different stories.

When my STS-98 crew launched into orbit on February 7, 2001—the first human space launch of the millennium—I marked the milestone by carrying with me two personal mementos of the landmark Stanly Kubrick science fiction film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.